Sunday, June 25, 2017

Why Republicans Won't Impeach Trump

Occasionally someone on my side asks why the Republicans don’t impeach
Trump. No one doubts that they would
rather have Mike Pence in office. Pence
is just as committed to their agenda as Trump – probably more so, since to him
it is a matter of real conviction, rather than naked opportunism. He is infinitely more disciplined than
Trump, free of any taint of corruption, irreproachable (to the point of
prudishness) in his private life, capable of basic administrative competence,
willing to put in the basic work to get
things done, and not prone to embarrassing outbursts. But above all, in case of crisis, there is no
need to handcuff him, stuff something in his mouth, and lock him in the closet
until it is over. Very important, that!

Some people have suggested that given how ideologically unreliable
Trump his, Congressional Republicans may welcome his sleaziness. It allows them to play a little blackmail
game – stick to our ideological agenda and we won’t dig too deeply into your shady financial dealings and ties to
Russia. But I have to believe that they
would prefer a leader who is ideologically reliable and not sleazy.*

The primary reason the Republicans won’t impeach is simple. What is an impeachable offense? The answer is simple – an impeachable offense
is anything public opinion says is impeachable.
Try to impeach a President when public opinion does not support you, and
you simply create a groundswell in favor of the target, by people who are angry
that their judgment in electing him is being second guessed.** This will probably require two things –
public conviction that the President has done something really heinous, and the
general sense that he isn’t doing a good job for the public.

Public opinion turned against Nixon, his approval rating falling to 24%
in the general public and 50% or less among Republicans. This was partly because his Attorney General
and Deputy Attorney General resigned rather than fire the Special Prosecutor,
something that telegraphed to the general public that his actions were truly
heinous. The fact that oil prices were
soaring, lines were forming at gas stations, inflation was surging while the
economy was soft, and crime rates were rising probably didn’t help.

Bill Clinton, by contrast, concealed evidence of an extra-marital
affair. The American public generally
saw this as an offence properly punished by laughter and ridicule, but hardly
grounds for impeachment. The fact the economy
was growing at a rate not seen in 30 years, unemployment and inflation were at
a 30 year low, real wages were rising faster than they had in 30 years, and
crime rates were falling (and that the stock market was the best since 1928, as
the Onion commented) probably
contributed to this impression. Under
those conditions, it would be hard to be impeached for anything short of being
caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.

So, Donald Trump. Granted, the
man is unpopular with the general public, but he remains highly popular with
the party faithful. And in today’s
polarized environment, Republicans in Congress don’t care about public opinion
in general. Only Republican opinion
matters. That is because what the
general public thinks makes no difference to a Republican incumbent if he or
she does not survive a primary challenge.
And besides, residential segregation of partisan opinion has become so
extreme that most Republicans represent districts where no Democrat would have
a chance anyhow. What that means is that
right now Donald Trump could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and
Congressional Republicans would not dare to impeach for fear of a primary
challenge.

Could anything change that? The
only think that might turn the party faithful against Trump appears to be if he
harmed them personally. It is possible
to imagine such a thing. Trumpcare could
strip millions of Trump supporters of their health insurance or price essential
care out of their reach. Republican cuts
to social programs could devastate a poor state like West Virginia. Republican infighting could lead to a debt
ceiling breach with unknown fallout and completely self-inflicted economic
damage. Or Trump could mismanage a
crisis so egregiously that even the party faithful could not defend his
actions. But then again, in today’s
polarized environment Trump will have the whole right-wing propaganda machine
pulling for him in such a case and a lot of faithful followers prepared to
accept just about anything so long as it pisses off the liberals. So it may be that even if Trump strips
millions of their health insurance, needlessly crashes the economy with a debt
ceiling breach, stumbles into a pointless ground war in Syria, and then shoots
someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, all the while spewing deranged tweets
that call his sanity into question, the party faithful will still stick with
him.

Oh, yes, and there is one other reason Republicans are unlikely to
impeach him, even if he does lose support with the party faithful. They have an agenda to pass. Essentially, they want to roll back as much
of the New Deal as possible, in order to restore top tax rates as near as
possible to pre-New Deal rates. This agenda
has next to no support outside the economic royalists of the Republican donor
class, including among the party faithful.***
Republicans in Congress have a choice.
They can either pass their wildly unpopular economic royalist agenda, or
they can engage in fratricidal strife.
But there is no way they can find time and energy to do both. And if they do attempt both, the unprincipled
and vindictive Trump will probably set out to improve his standing with the
public by denouncing and vetoing their economic royalist agenda. Given the options, it should hardly be a
surprise that Republicans prefer to pass their wildly unpopular agenda to
engaging in fratricidal strife. Neither
will do them any good at the polls. But
at least passing their agenda will give them something to show for it.

_______________________________________

*It is true that Stalin is purported to have said that he would rather
people follow him out of fear than conviction because conviction depends on the
other person and fear on himself. This
is just another version of Machiavelli’s comment that it is better for a ruler
to be feared by his subjects than loved because love depends on his subjects
and fear on the ruler. But people who obey out of fear are not
reliable; they are always eager to look for ways to slip loose. Real loyalty comes from conviction, and from
real respect.

**And not just by people who voted for him. Bill Clinton won by less than a majority in
1996, but his approval rating rose to 80% when Republicans were bringing
impeachment proceedings against him.
Apparently a significant number of people who did not vote for Clinton
nonetheless believed the Republicans should have respected the people’s choice.

***My guess is it will have
the support of the right-wing propaganda apparatus, which is basically run by
economic royalists who are merely exploiting the party faithful. But I could be wrong here.